Donald Trump

Trump began his morning today by retweeting Canadian white nationalist Lauren Southern. Some background: A far-right Canadian activist has been banned from entering the UK for distributing posters that said “Allah is gay.” Lauren Southern was detained trying to enter the UK at the Port of Calais after her previous trip saw her distributing the leaflets in Luton at an …

Glorious Leader is ending his week of 200+ tweets by raging about the latest crop of far-right extremists to be banned from various social media platforms. This whining comes hours after his eldest son made similar complaints. As those of us who attended a fifth grade civics class know, freedom of speech doesn’t apply when it comes to private companies. …

NBC News reports: President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Friday and both agreed “there was no collusion” between Moscow and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. Sanders said that the two briefly discussed special counsel Robert Mueller’s report “essentially in the context of that it’s over and there was no collusion.” She …

Cynthia Laird reports at the Bay Area Reporter: San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera on Thursday announced he had filed suit against the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services to invalidate a new federal rule that would allow health care staff to refuse to provide medical treatment to people, even in emergencies. If allowed to take effect, the …

Politico reports: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on Thursday asked special counsel Robert Mueller whether his team reviewed President Trump’s taxes as part of their investigation into Russian election interference as Trump said he assumed they had. Klobuchar, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, wrote to Mueller seeking information on whether investigators obtained Trump’s personal tax returns or …

The Washington Post reports: President Trump on Thursday announced new ‘conscience’ protections for health providers during a speech in front of faith leaders gathered for the National Day of Prayer. Ahead of the announcement, conservative groups who have raised what they perceive as religious liberty concerns have welcomed the rule, which was first proposed last year, while LGBT and other …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Thursday took aim at the investigations into his administration during a National Day of Prayer event, telling attendees that he has survived the “witch hunts” in part by thinking about God. “People say, ‘How do you get through that whole stuff. How do you go through those witch hunts and everything else?’ ” Trump …

The New York Times reports: President Trump said he would not nominate Stephen Moore for a seat on the Federal Reserve board after several Republican lawmakers raised concerns about the conservative economist’s previous comments denigrating women. Mr. Moore, who continued to insist as recently as Thursday that he retained Mr. Trump’s support, appeared unlikely to win Senate confirmation after Republican …

The Hill reports: “Imagine, Rachel, that you had one of the Democratic nominees for 2020 on your show and that person said, ‘You know, the only other adversary of ours who is anywhere near as good as the Russians is China,'” Hillary Clinton said last night during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “‘So why should Russia have all the …

We join this story in mid-grift: At some point later that evening, a group repaired to Mar-a-Lago’s Library Bar, a wood-paneled study with a portrait of Trump in tennis whites (titled “The Visionary”) hanging nearby. The group asked the bartender to leave the room so it “could speak confidentially,” according to an email written by Mar-a-Lago’s catering director, Brooke Watson. …

In his opening remarks at the Senate hearing for Attorney General Bill Barr, Lindsey Graham predictably launched into right wing talking points, reciting a 2016 text message from now-former FBI agent Peter Strzok. “Trump is a fucking idiot,” Graham read to a live national audience. Then he apologized to any children that might be watching. Graham went on to rant …

The Daily Beast reports: Donald Trump went on a wild retweet frenzy Wednesday morning, sharing 60 apparently supportive messages from firefighters after a prominent union announced its endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden. The retweet rampage was unusual in itself, but the twist came when one of his supposed supporters changed their username to “Fuck Donald Trump.” The username …

Fox News reports: According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, bills have been introduced in 17 states that would keep President Trump off their election ballots in 2020 unless he releases his tax returns to the public. The measures have passed the Senate in four states, including California, Hawaii, Illinois and Washington state. The Constitution has spoken to that,” …

The Hill reports: A top Israeli official says that the country will officially name a train station in Jerusalem after President Trump next week during the country’s annual Independence Day celebrations. Trump has maintained a close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and broke with previous U.S. administrations to recognize Jerusalem as the country’s official capital in late 2017. …

Business Insider reports: President Donald Trump has proposed the introduction of a fee for migrants seeking asylum in the US, outlining the policy in a memorandum released Monday. The White House said the president issued the memorandum to the acting secretary of homeland security, Kevin McAleenan, to ensure that “legitimate asylum seekers can access asylum while more efficiently processing and …

Politico reports: Former Defense Secretary James Mattis declined to carry out orders from President Trump or otherwise limited his options in various attempts to prevent tensions with North Korea, Iran and Syria from escalating, The New Yorker reported Monday, the latest report of Trump’s own officials trying to check his worst instincts. In 2017, following a series of North Korean …

CNN reports: Joseph Yun, the former State Department Special Representative for North Korea, confirmed Monday that he signed an agreement to pay North Korea $2 million for the release of American student Otto Warmbier in 2017. In an interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Yun said that he did so with the approval of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and that …

Mediaite reports: Andrew Napolitano accused Donald Trump of mischaracterizing their conversations together when the president swiped at him over the weekend. Maria Bartiromo asked Napolitano about this when he joined her on Fox Business, but he shrugged it off and asked “This is the way you treat your friends? How do you treat your enemies?” Napolitano said that when he …

Randy Rainbow is back today with a positively delicious evisceration of lying Trump World figures in the wake of the Mueller report. Today’s parody is set the tune of “Belle” from Disney’s 1991 classic, Beauty And The Beast, which was written by eight-time Oscar winner Alan Menken. As always, I won’t give away the jokes. This a must-watch.